Conference
Natural Notation for the Domestic Internet of Things
Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on End-User Development (IS-EUD), Madrid, 2015, pp. 25–41.
IARU
Digitizing Sticky Notes
(2014-2015)
Project Overview
Explores how natural-language sticky notes can act as end-user programming for smart homes, bridging human-written reminders and IoT automation.
Smart homes promise to automate everyday tasks, yet programming these environments remains challenging for non-experts. This project investigates how natural language instructions, written in the familiar form of sticky notes, can bridge the gap between human intent and IoT device behaviour.
Researchers conducted an experiment where participants wrote sticky notes specifying future actions. These notes targeted three distinct audiences: themselves, other people, or computer agents. The analysis examined linguistic features, communication strategies, and informal visual language used across these contexts. By understanding how people naturally express instructions, the findings offer practical design guidance for building end-user development interfaces that make smart home programming accessible to everyone.
Team
Charith Perera
Saeed Aghaee
Alan Blackwell
Funding
IARU
The International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) is a cooperative network of leading research universities advancing global higher education.
ANU
The Australian National University (ANU) is a national research university located in Canberra, Australia.
SNSF
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) funds scientific research in Switzerland across all disciplines.